World History Homework Three Answers - Student 7

3. Explain what this is:
This is the Yin and Yang. The darker side is the Yin. The Yin represents femininity, negativity and passiveness. The lighter "Yang" represents action, masculinity, and positivity. This symbol posits that opposites are only compatible, and for a full circle they are both necessary. This prefigured western relativism as it treated neither of the opposites, positivity and negativity, as superior.

Superb analysis.

4. Pick one of the religions in this week's lecture and discuss it, including where it fits in as to popularity and influence among all the world religions.
Buddhism is an interesting belief system as it has a similar set of commands as christianity has, but has an opposite goal. Buddhism's system of restraint from human urges and sin is similar to God's punishment of the Israelites for sin in the Old Testament. The End goal in Buddhism, however, is to end one's existence whereas in Christianity it is to achieve heaven. In comparison to other religions that were founded without knowledge of Jesus or Divine Inspiration Buddhism's system of restraint seems to be one of the greatest human developments. Buddhism ranks 6th in major religions probably because most of its members may not practice solely Buddhism, or do not take Buddhism to be a belief system or religion as much as a way of life.

Excellent again. This statement in your answer is particularly good: "The End goal in Buddhism, however, is to end one's existence whereas in Christianity it is to achieve heaven."

5. Which intellectual insight or breakthrough discussed in this week's lecture is most important, and why?
Arabic numerals fascinate me because of their incredibly simple composition and new concepts. Roman numerals, in contrast to arabic numerals could have 6 digits for a three digit arabic numerals, and Roman Numerals had no method of writing decimals or zero. If Arabic numerals had not been invented by the Indians, then we may still be debating the quotient of 4 and 17.